Ditches
by glassamilk
Summary: Prequel to Gutters. In the days leading up to The Calamity, the world braces and families struggle not to be torn apart.
1. Chapter 1 of 5

Denmark, for all of his macho posturing, has always been a not-so-secret admirer of daisies.

"April showers bring May flowers," he muses and twists the stem of the bleach-white flower between his two fingers. He turns it down, up, then allows it to go with gravity, dropping it to float down against Norway's cheek. Norway snorts through his nose, blowing the petals away, and turns his head into Denmark's shoulder.

"And then what?" He breathes. "What does June bring?"

Denmark does not have a reply for that. His arm drops back to his side, back into the cool grass that tickles his elbows. Above them, the sky is white and heavy with early pockets of spring rain, and below them, the ground is stirring with something neither of them can quite place. Denmark spreads his fingers through the grass—clips the head off of another daisy and flicks it across the open expanse of green and shadowy field. "Any word from the guys you have back home?"

Norway shakes his head. "No. They don't know anything new… just that something is changing."

Denmark breathes in through his mouth. "Something," he sighs. "Something."

"Something."

A break in the conversation as the wind picks up. Norway slips his cross-shaped pin back against his ear to keep his hair from whipping across his face. "We shouldn't stay much longer. It's going to rain soon."

Denmark shrugs and pushes himself up with his elbows. "It's too hot to rain. Besides, rain's never bugged me before."

"Me neither." Norway rolls onto his stomach and slides back to face Denmark. He brushes the small pile of beheaded daisies out of his lap. "We need to go home sometime, though."

"Home." Denmark scrubs a hand down his face. "My home or your home?"

"Yours is closer." Norway picks a weed out of Denmark's hair. "For now."

Denmark catches Norway's hand and clasps it between his own, rubbing a callused thumb over equally callused knuckles in slow, careful sweeps that send goose bumps creeping up into Norway's shoulders. "And what about in May?"

"You know exactly what we are going to do in May."

A crestfallen expression that Norway doesn't bother to smooth away. "Yeah."

"It's for the best."

"I know."

"We need to prepare our people."

"I know."

Norway sighs and breaks away from Denmark's grip on his hands, placing both palms on the back of his neck and pulling their faces together. "We don't have to like it, but it is what it is. We still have a week before lock-down starts, so we may as well make the best of it."

Denmark drops his hands to the ground behind him and sighs, too deep and too old for the romantic picnic that once was planned in the early afternoon. "I just don't want to miss anything."

"You won't." Norway pulls back. "There will be a constant line of contact between the five of us. And once the lock-down period passes, everything will go back to normal."

"I don't think it will." Denmark looks down at the sprinkle of daisies between them. He slowly curls his fingers in, taking firm fistfuls of grass and kneading at damp ground. "Do you feel that?" He waits for Norway to touch the grass. "The vibrations?"

"I feel it."

"The Earth is trembling." He opens his palms again. "I don't think 'normal' is going to be an option for a while."

Norway gets to his feet and stares over Denmark at the too-bright glow of the sun on the horizon. Sweat clings to him like a second skin, sticky enough to tempt him to push away the government regulated sunglasses for just a moment- -almost. _Almost._  
>He helps Denmark to stand.<p>

"Perhaps not."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Sve-<strong>_

_**Still digging out bunkers and quickly running out of space.**_

**Any word on temporary relocation?**

**-DK**

* * *

><p>"This is my last beer, 'land," Denmark carefully finishes measuring off two exactly equal portions into stout glasses emblazoned with the UN logo. "Don't waste it."<p>

Netherlands snorts and catches the empty bottle that Denmark throws at him. "Like I would. Anything non-essential is being rationed."

"Cigarettes?"

"Cigarettes."

They sit down at the dusty table in the corner of the meeting room and Denmark hangs his coat on the back of his chair. "There were three new flare-ups last night." He holds his beer in one hand. "I can't decide if I feel like I'm suffocating or drowning."

"Practically the same thing." Netherlands pushes his glass forward and watches the wet trail it leaves. Between his teeth, he gnashes on a plastic coffee straw. "Only difference is one is wet and one is sweaty."  
>"Also practically the same thing."<p>

They click their glasses together and spend a moment in silence finishing their portions.

"Feels kinda final, don't it?" Denmark grins and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "The last beer."

Netherlands nods and leans forward, fishing through his pockets, then dropping a plain, white box on the table, followed just a second later with a clear blue lighter. "The last cigarette."

"You offering to share?"

"You're about the only person around who I'd offer my last smoke to, Den." He flicks the box open and lets Denmark take the cigarette, stretching an arm over the table to light it for him. "Just so long as you know you owe me one now."

Denmark breathes in deep—pauses—blows out smoke. "Oh yeah? And what do I owe you?" He passes the cigarette across to Netherlands.

"You owe me the next last cigarette you find." He takes a long drag. "And once all this bullshit is over, you 'n that rat-pack family of yours need to dig your way out and come find mine."

"Belgium and Luxembourg, I assume."

Netherlands looks at him like he's the greatest fool he's ever seen and blows smoke into his face before letting him take the cigarette. "Just promise me you won't drown when this thing hits."

"I won't drown. I'm a great swimmer."

"Except when you're not."

"I'm not going to drown, idiot."

Netherlands gets up and puts his sunglasses back on, shrugging back into his coat and crumpling the empty cigarette box in his fist. "See you after lock-down."

"Yep."

They toast empty glasses one last time and Netherlands leaves with a coffee straw between his teeth. 

* * *

><p><em><em>  
><strong><em>Denmark;<em>**

**_Still short on space ourselves._**

**_It's cutting it close, but I will have an answer for you by the end of the month._**

_**In the meantime, just keep digging.**_

**-Sverige**


	2. Chapter 2 of 5

Denmark's people are fighting.

Sjælland has officially run out of room in the shelters and no one else seems to be digging fast enough to keep up with the increasingly overwhelming need for reinforced steel dwellings. Metal cannot be produced in the quantities they need with the time they have, and even if it could be, space has dwindled too much to be used for much more than they have already done. Farmers on Fyn have relinquished every last bit of land that was left to have, major cities have boarded up residential neighborhoods as best they can, and while teams in København line the ocean's edge with sandbags, Denmark digs.

He is with a group of seven men and six women, waist-deep in the basement of a house in Dragør. The backhoe is being used in another basement three blocks down, undoubtedly making faster progress than they, but being idle in frantic times is not something Denmark is capable of, especially when the neighborhood children are watching him. The sun beats down above them, searing them where they stand, but even with sweat in his eyes and blisters on his palms, he cannot just sit and wait for the heavy machines to become available again, if at all. Neither can his teammates. Even the children pick at the sides of the hole with small sand shovels.

He can feel gunfire in his legs as the shelters in Århus begin to seal their doors. His boot falters on the spade, just for a moment, before he begins to dig faster. Violence is spreading as safe space shrinks. If the trend continues, his most densely populated cities could quickly become a battleground, much in the same way London has begun to go. He aims his dirt for the wheelbarrow and misses—crushes the soil the children have shaped into a castle by accident.

Somehow, even with the shooting pain in his knees, that seems like a worse omen than anything. 

* * *

><p>By the end of April, Denmark's own home has been bricked up and opened to the public. He has managed to scrape a reasonable shelter out of the large, old structure, and at least fifty people are crammed in a sweating mass deep in the basement. Energy conservation is at a record high, as is the situation with water, so the people he houses are thirsty and reek of a week's worth of digging and building, edgy and paranoid already despite the heavy locks on the main doors to keep looters out. He can feel their nervous energy in every corner of his once comfortable house, now locked and boarded from foundations to the roof. It makes him anxious. Unsure.<p>

He is one of the few with a cellphone that still works, and he steals what time he can to keep in contact with his peers. Norway is often out of reception, having headed for the mountains with many of his people and only within range when he returns to the lower-lying cities, and Netherlands has all but dropped off the face of the Earth. He occupies his brief moments of calm by slowly clicking through his contact list, choosing carefully who he wants to use his precious air-time for.

On May first, the choice is obvious.

"Hey, Swede, any Valborg plans this year?"

Sweden is less than amused with Denmark's attempts at humor and is not afraid to tell him so.

"No wood t'burn," he grunts and Denmark can hear the rustle of papers. "Too dang'rous t'be outside fer long."

"I believe that." Denmark leans back in the plastic chair in what is left of his kitchen. Every spare scrap of metal has been taken away to be recycled into more useful parts, leaving his cooking space a dusty, hollowed-out shell of the cheery nook it once was. "But not doin' anything at all? That, I don't believe. No parade? No raft races?"

"No." Sweden's voice is clipped and the papers cease their shuffles. "Nothin'."

A silence settles between the lines. Denmark picks at the rough plastic of his chair. "You heard from Finland at all?"

"Heard enough. S'headed for Kouvola."

"What for?"

"Water's risin'. Gotta help prepare the coast."

Denmark hums in understand. "He's in the same boat as me, then. I can't decide if I feel like I'm burnin' up or drowning."

"Still wearin' the sun mask?"

"Have to." He flicks a finger against the side of the dark, plastic shield attached to his face. "Higher-ups won't let me leave without. I keep tellin' 'em I'll be fine with the old glasses, but they're not having it."

"Best t'listen to 'em." Sweden's phone crackles. "Gettin' too hot t'be safe anymore."

"You guys any closer to figuring out why?"

"Thinkin' sun spots. Investigatin', but prob'ly another dead end."

"Yeah, that's where we're at too. Germany too."

Sweden sighs and the line goes fuzzy again. "An' how is Germany?"

'Oh, you know." Denmark grins. "Panicking, trying not to crumble under the pressure, begging me for my help. The usual."

Denmark can practically see Sweden rolling his eyes. "He's fine, then."

"Yeah, he's fine. Efficient as fuck, trying to get everybody situated in time. Which reminds me," he gets up from his seat and goes to lean against a window he can no longer see out of. "Everyone is predicting whatever this is is going to hit around the fifteenth of next month. You think that's going to be true?"

"Depends."

"On?"

"How hot it gets."

Denmark laughs and rests his forehead against the hot glass of the window. "Yeah, I suppose if anyone is gonna have to worry about sunburns, it's you, eh?"

"Shut it."

"Nope." His phone beeps. The battery is nearly out. "Shit, my phone is about to die, Sve, I gotta go."

"Right. M'line 's gonna be down for a bit. Rollin' blackouts 're knockin' out towers."

"Same. Try and keep cool, brickface, I'll call you next week if I can."

"Get bent, y'dirty so-"

Denmark's phone dies and he never does get a chance to use it again. 

* * *

><p>By mid-May, riots have broken out in most of Denmark's major cities. The shelters are full beyond capacity and the neighboring countries have no more wiggle room for temporary housing. The lines at all borders, land, sea, and air are packed with enraged citizens unable to leave, and soon, boats begin disappearing from the harbor and candlelight starts to flicker in lighthouses that have long since been abandoned.<p>

Denmark's royal family goes to their shelter amid chaos and the sound of breaking glass. They try to persuade Denmark to come with them, but he just releases their hands and tells them to give whatever free space they have to the terrified people who don't know what is coming. He spends one last night with them before they go, discussing implausible evacuation plans and clean-up measures, and when they have all gone to bed and he has taken to the steaming streets, he regrets not spending those hours playing with the children and reassuring the adults that everything would turn out fine.

He should have spent more time helping little Isabella braid her hair instead of worrying his Queen with the possibility of body clean-up at the end of the spring season. He shouldn't have scared them. Everything will be fine. He knows it. 

* * *

><p>On the seventh of June, the sun sets the world on fire. <p>


End file.
